The Bodyguard Read Online Free PDF Page B

lucky?” Cornell asked, his notebook out again.
    “She could die.”
    A nurse came into the room and whispered something to the doctor.
    “I have to check on another patient, gentlemen,” the doctor said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
    After the doctor left, Cornell flipped his notebook closed.
    “I’m keeping Mrs. Ashton at the top of my persons-of-interest list.”
    Luke stared at him incredulously. “After what the doctor just said? You’d pursue her as a suspect?”
    “Regardless of what her husband did to her, she didn’t have the right to kill him. She should have reported the abuse.”
    “It’s not that easy and you know it. I’ve seen enough domestic-violence cases to know people feel trapped, with nowhere to turn. Or they kid themselves into thinking the abuser is sorry, that he’ll change his ways. Or worse, they blame themselves. Getting out isn’t as easy as you would think from the outside looking in.”
    “Regardless, she’s a billionaire’s wife,” Cornell said. “She wasn’t exactly hurting for money. She could have left him. She did leave him. She wasn’t trapped.”
    Luke ground his teeth together and reached for Caroline’s hand. Her skin was burning up, pale, almost translucent. He couldn’t begin to imagine the pain she’d suffered. Did she even know she was pregnant? Did she know she’d lost a baby?
    “In the waiting room,” Luke said, “you agreed she couldn’t have killed him.”
    Cornell’s gaze flicked to where Luke held Caroline’s hand. “I agreed she couldn’t have shot him. But that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t know who did. Her husband was a billionaire. That gives me a billion reasons she might be involved in his death somehow. And the evidence the doctor just showed us is pretty convincing. What better motive to kill her husband than because he’d abused her and caused her to miscarry?”
    His argument was sound. But Caroline had come to Luke asking for his help, and here she was in a hospital bed fighting for her life. She needed someone else to fight for her now. Since no one else was volunteering for the job, that someone might as well be him.
    “Do you even know if she’ll inherit?” he asked. “If not, that blows your billion-reason theory away.”
    “Not yet. I called the husband’s law firm. His lawyer is going to send me a copy of the will.” The detective looked at Luke’s hand on Caroline’s again. “Tell me, Mr. Dawson. With her resources, how hard do you think it would be for Mrs. Ashton to hire someone to kill her husband?”
    Luke wanted to deny the possibility but couldn’t. What Cornell said made sense. If Caroline had finally decided enough was enough, she had all the resources to make it happen.

Chapter Four
    Luke shifted in his chair, bracing his forearms on his knees as he watched the doctor and nurses on the other side of Caroline’s hospital room. She’d responded well to the antibiotics and was already out of the Intensive Care Unit. Now the doctor was lightening her sedation to bring her out of her deep, healing sleep. For the first time since the discovery of Richard Ashton’s body, Luke was going to be able to talk to Caroline. He looked forward to seeing her open her eyes, but he also dreaded the pain she might suffer if she hadn’t known about the baby.
    All but one of the nurses left the room. The remaining nurse sat in a chair beside the bed. The doctor spoke to her in low tones before approaching Luke.
    “It won’t be long now,” he said. “Nurse Kennery will stay and monitor Mrs. Ashton until she wakes up, but I don’t expect any problems.”
    Luke rose and shook his hand. “Thank you, Doctor.”
    He nodded and left the room.
    Luke started toward the bed to check on Caroline, when the door opened again.
    A rail-thin woman in a coal-black suit jacket and skirt hurried inside, her high heels clicking against the hard floor. She stopped when she saw Luke, her brows rising.
    “Who are you?” she